Bring On Tomorrow
by JestaAriadne
Summary: Slightly skewy PostMeteor adventure. There's a bizarre new threat, of course it's sort of purple and has evil pokey claws. Sounds like fun, right?
1. Of Housemates

Bring on Tomorrow

by JestaAriadne, 2003 

Hello there... nice to see you. You're here for the story? Tis a fun story... Written for enjoyment (hard-work-type-enjoyment some of the time, but still.) Read for same reason!

Disclaimer... I don't own Final Fantasy VII. Squaresoft(SquareEnix?) does. Sad, but true... 'Bring on Tomorrow' is a song from Fame which I also don't own... unrelated, but I like it as a title.

* * *

Part 1 : Of Housemates

_"You try spending thirty years in a coffin and see how you feel!"_

"Tifaaaaaaa!"

From inside the house there was the noise of someone jumping down stairs about ten at a time.

Tifa jumped back as the door swung rapidly towards her and a red-bandana-ed cannonball flew out and hugged her forcefully.

"Yuffie?" she asked stupidly when she'd got her breath back.

"Who'd ya think?" yelled Yuffie. "Omi... it's been like AGES since I saw you!"

"Yeah," Tifa nodded slowly, a little dazed. She had not expected Yuffie Kisaragi to come rocketing out of this particular Rocket Town residence... "Five months at least, I guess..."

Yuffie, staring in open-mouthed no-words stunned excitement, was silent for a good five seconds. Then: "Tifa! You know, I have _missed _you so much! How've you been? How's Cloud? Where's Cloud? Are you two -"

"You can actually come inside if you wish," said a different voice. "I'm sure Yuffie could move aside to accommodate that..."

Tifa almost fell backwards as she looked beyond Yuffie.

"Vincent?"

"Yeah!" said Yuffie cheerily, bouncing out of Tifa's way and showing her in. "Who else could it be? Actually, hey look - I can do Vincent, look!" She narrowed her eyes, frowned intensely and pulled her collar up over her nose. "I am the Dark Lord of All That Is Angsty," she intoned. "See! See!"

"I don't think all this oxygen can be too good for her," Vincent muttered confidentially.

Tifa half-smiled in astonishment and polite bewilderment: Vincent coffin-bound, sin-obsessed, Lord of All That Is Angsty Valentine... making a joke?

"Sorry," she said, more than a little bemused as the other two led her into Cid and Shera's kitchen, "um... doesn't Cid live here?"

"Yeah!"

"And Shera?"

"Yes."

"And... and you two?"

"Yeah!"

"We do."

"...You _live _here...?" Tifa asked, under her breath and not expecting an answer.

"Hey, sit down!" said Yuffie, energetically hitting the sofa to demonstrate its existance and purpose.

"I'd offer you some tea," said Vincent, "except that Shera will probably be down in a minute and then you'll get about twenty cups."

"Er, that's OK..." said Tifa.

* * *

"So, you both actually _live _here?" 

Tifa was trying again; a few minutes later, when Yuffie and Vincent were sitting down and passing her generous amounts chocolate cookies.

"Yeah."

"Isn't that a little... weird?"

"Nah, not really..." said Yuffie, suddenly looking the other way.

"I thought you were going to buy a place in Mideel or something, Yuff?"

"Yeah, erm, I was... lots of cool monsters around there... but um..."

"We've got no money," said Vincent flatly. Yuffie hit him.

"But haven't you got a house in Wutai?"

"Vincent has Issues with the traps and stuff in the basement and I'm not gonna take them out."

Vincent glared. "Well, _you _try spending thirty years in a coffin and see how _you _feel. Tifa, have you _seen _the place?"

"Briefly," Tifa growled. "From the inside of a cage. _Not_ an experience I'd like to repeat."

"Aw, let it go, Tif," said Yuffie, making puppy-dog eyes and rolling them, "that was like _months _ago! I'm sooo much more mature now. Even about materia and stuff!"

Vincent cast a patented Valentine Withering Look at her. "This coming from someone who blew all the money on a 'Super-master-everything-materia' from that guy in Junon," he pointed out.

"How was I supposed to know it wouldn't work? It looked so pretty! Besides," she added, casting the patent-pending Kisaragi Glare at Vincent, "it wasn't _all _of the money. _Someone _spent several thousand gil on a load of random gun accessories."

"I keep telling you, they're not 'random gun accessories', they're..."

Tifa let her mind wander a bit, after noting that Yuffie and Vincent for some reason appeared to be sharing a financial account. And that Yuffie wasn't staying in Wutai because Vincent didn't want to. _Interesting..._

"...and you _never _change the toilet roll!" said Yuffie with an air of finality. Vincent looked defeated.

Tifa blinked. That was - different...

"But, do you have jobs here? Or are you just leeching off Cid's hospitality?"

"Hehe, a bit of both," grinned Yuffie. "Vinnie here," - he only twitched slightly at the nickname - "works in the weapons store, and I'm a prostitute."

"WHAT?"

"Joke! Joke!" Yuffie raised her hands to defend herself from Tifa's aggressive shock. "I do the materia shop weekends."

Tifa looked slightly pacified for a second; then immediately suspicious. "You _'do' _the materia shop?"

"I _work _in it! I _sell_ stuff, OK? And," she added, sounding quietly pleased with herself, "I'm good at it. I only have to do a couple days and they pay me quite a lot. They say I'm a natural salesperson."

"Do they mean something like 'you don't shut up until someone's bought something'?"

Yuffie nodded cheerfully. "Like I said, natural salesperson."

* * *

"You run a _museum_?" Tifa almost choked on her tea when Cid broke the news. 

He crushed a cookie to dust in his hand. "It was Shera's idea," he said, frowning. "She said people would pay just to see all sorts of random junk from where the famous rocket was." He brightened. "She was right, though. We always did get £&ing tourists, but at least now they _pay_ a couple hundred gil to drop litter all over our town."

"But, I mean - do you actually work there? Show people round?" Tifa was having difficulty imagining Cid conducting an Educational And Entertaining Tour Suitable For All the Family.

"Hell, no. Kids do that for part time jobs, and we just rearrange the exhibits every once in a while. It works," he said thoughtfully. "It does kinda work for the whole town. I should thank Shera properly sometime, but... y'know."

Tifa grinned hopelessly. "Yeah, I know you're Cid."

"Speaking of which, what's with you just dropping in at my house? Invite yourself did ya?"

She shrugged. "I dunno what made me do it. I'm not planning on staying or anything-"

"I should hope not! I'd have to put you in the room Yuffie's got, an' I'm sure you'd looove that..."

"I just felt like dropping in to say hello, or something." She felt useless.

"What are you doing with your life at the moment?"

"Oh... stuff. There's a bar in Nibelhelm. Kinda like your museum. I own the place, but I'm not always around. I'm just kinda... drifting..."

"Nowhere to go, huh?" asked Cid, softening.

"No!" retorted Tifa. "I've got loads of places to go!" She paused. "I just... don't wanna go to any of them, is all."

"Mmmm..." Cid looked away, then muttered almost agressively: "Y'can stay here if you really £&ing want to. Just a couple days, mind."

* * *

End of part one! Reviews make me happy! Happiness is good! The world needs goodness! Save the world, review my fic! 

...Coming soon: more characters and a plot.

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	2. Educating Tifa

THANK YOU to you who reviewed! is happy

chapter 2. The surreal chapter. Don't worry, it gets back to normal soon!

...Uh... by 'normal', I mean... aw, never mind.

* * *

Part 2 : Educating Tifa

_"It got to all of us, didn't it?"_

"Tifa..."

Someone was waving a hand in front of her face. The weird thing was that she had her eyes closed, or at least she'd thought she had. She'd thought she was asleep. It had been a relieving experience, to finally shut off from Yuffie's excited whispers about materia, Vincent, the world in general, materia, Cid's funny museum, Tifa's lovelife, materia... altogether making her wonder if it had been such a good idea to give in and say: 'I'll just stay one night, then.'

But now Tifa really wasn't sure _what_ was happening.

She blinked. Although possibly her eyes stayed closed. Very odd, that. Must be a weird sort of dream.

"Tifa!"

"Alright..." she said blurrily, "I'm coming..." She looked up. She'd given up trying to make sense of the sleep/awake front.

"Aeris?" she breathed.

"Hi!"

"...Aeris?"

"Yeah! It's me!" Aeris giggled at the look on Tifa's face.

"But...Aeris!" said Tifa, still more than a little shaken.

"Yes!"

"Oh...OK."

Aeris grinned. "Feels like ages since I've seen you..." She was floating in - something. Butterflies around here._ Butterflies, for pity's sake..._ And _flowers. _And it worked. It looked right._ Beautiful. _It was only what she deserved...

"Yeah... more than sixth months anyway..."

"How've you been?" There were slices of moonlight in her hair, and she looked just the same as ever...

Tifa opened her mouth and then shut it again. Not sure. Eventually she settled for "Oh... OK."

"Yeah?"

Tifa shrugged. "Yeah, I'm OK, I guess. Is it a stupid question to ask how you are?"

"Nah, course not. Well, I've been OK too. How's Cloud?"

"Probably OK," Tifa said simply. "In Junon now, I think."

"And you're not?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Now _there _was a nice simple question...

"I... I don't know... Everyone went their seperate ways..." _Except Yuffie and Vincent_, she thought suddenly. "I helped clear up Midgar for a bit, Cloud too, but we both got so sick of seeing such a sorry mess every day... It's better there now though, people got out and... yeah. I said I wanted to go off traveling for a bit or something. You know - exploring a la Yuffie, but it didn't turn out that fun really... Oh God, I'm making it sound all morbid and terrible..."

"You should go find him, Tif."

Tifa looked quizzically at the mysteriously floating girl. "I never really know what to say to him... He - misses you, you know."

"Yeah...? Well, you can tell him I miss him too. I miss all of you lot," she smiled again, eyes sparkling, "It was weird, wasn't it? It wasn't that long when we were all together, Saving the World and everything, but it got to all of us, didn't it?"

"I... guess so." _I thought so_, was what she wanted to say. _Except now we've all gone off in different directions because there's a whole lot too many memories tying us up and we want to forget them. Do we? Do I?_

"Have you really all lost touch with each other?"

Tifa shook her head. "Not all of us, certainly. It's not as bad as I make it seem. Yuffie and Vincent seem to be sticking together pretty well."

Aeris turned a light somersault in the not-quite-air, laughing. "Oooh, I-have-sinned Valentine and the Yuffster? That's so cool!"

Tifa grinned openly. "Yeah, it is. I dunno just how serious they are really, but - well, they're living the same house. Which happens to be the same house as Cid and Shera."

Aeris whistled. "That's some house!"

"Yeah. Things certainly get... interesting. There's a lot of 'Where's my £ing TEA?' and 'Who the £&£'s got my materia?'"

They two of them stood in the nothingness, remembering old times. _Reminiscing?_ Tifa hadn't exactly expected that.

"Aeris... how come you're here?"

Aeris shrugged, her hair falling about a little too slowly, like it was in water. "Just came to say hi, I guess. I've been trying to get through for a bit, but I couldn't."

"This is really weird. For me, I mean."

"I don't think _I've_ got it all down yet, but it's starting to make sense."

"What is?"

"Everything, I guess."

The only response Tifa was inspired to come up with was: "Oh, OK... And - Aeris... why me? Why did you come to see _me_?"

Aeris looked confused.

"Oh, not I _mind _or anything!" Tifa exclaimed. "I'm - I'm really happy I could - see you again... It's just - it doesn't make sense..."

"I wouldn't worry too much. Look, Tifa, I'm also telling you to go find Cloud and talk to him or something. Think of it like a death-bed wish, only a bit too late."

"...Aeris...?"

"Hey, it's OK, I can make jokes about death! It's not disrespectful or anything; I'm dead, remember?"

"No, it's not that... It's just - you really wouldn't mind me finding Cloud and - anything that might happen then?"

"I really wouldn't mind."

"You sure? He... loves you."

Aeris sighed, and a smile crept up on her face. "Look, the way I see it, I'm dead, and he's not. And you're not. And, yeah, I think I loved him, love him, but so do you and - look, it's OK, OK?"

"OK..." said Tifa. "Thanks. Er... have you ever - seen him...? Recently, I mean?"

"I couldn't." Aeris smiled sadly. "Besides, I think it might just freak him out... He'd think he was going crazy, and I couldn't put him through that. You know he's kinda been through a lot..."

Tifa nodded slowly. "Yeah, I got that..." Then she tried to think of something else to say. "What about Zack?" she finally asked.

"Yeah... you know, I miss him a lot... It feels like ages ago, though. Maybe I'll go find him." She looked up to whatever was above eternity. She somersaulted over again. "Yeah... maybe I'll do that," she grinned.

Tifa watched her flying, jumping. "Hey..." she said shyly, "How do you do that flippy thing?"

Aeris leapt lightly over to her and took her non-existant hand in hers. "Here." They jumped through the air, scattering petals and pale wings and fragments of light, and Tifa still didn't understand.

"So..." Tifa wasn't sure if it was possible to be out of breath here, but she thought she was. "Is this what you do now? Are you - are you still _here_, around the Planet somewhere?"

"I -" Aeris stopped and bit her nonexistant lip. "I don't think I'm meant to tell you that... Trade secrets of the Lifestream and all..." She shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. But - um, I think something else big is going to happen. Big-ish, anyway."

"What?"

"I can't quite tell... It's weird. Whatever. It'll make sense soon. Look," she said again, with emphasis, "Tifa: _go get Cloud._ Go find him and stop him being all morbid and mopey and make sure he eats his greens and looks both ways when he crosses a road and - and try to make him happy. I know that's a tall order, but can you please try?"

"Y-yeah. Sure."

"I think - I think he might need you pretty soon."

Tifa looked at Aeris suspiciously. "Is that in a rhetorical romantic sense, or is there really going to be another world crisis?" she asked.

"I'm... not sure."

Can dead people lie? Tifa looked carefully at Aeris. "It seems like a pretty major point to me!"

"Yeah, probably..." She shrugged. "But like I said, it _will_ come clear sometime."

"I guess I'll just have to trust you on that one."

"Yeah. Trust someone anyway. Keep on smiling, Tifa. The world'll never get us down."

She grabbed Tifa's hand again and they somersaulted and span and spiraled into the soft vastness of the void beyond the world, dancing free, and the butterflies were brighter all around...

* * *

End of chapter 2 :) Wake UP, Tifa! Stay tuned, and all... Oh, and by the way: review, while you're at it?

Chapter 3 is up too because I didn't feel like leaving you floating in the void of nothingness. Isn't that peachy?


	3. What Cid Did

Part 3 : What Cid Did

_"I'm no £&ing coward!"_

"Tifa!"

Her eyes felt flickery again. "...uh...?"

"Tifa! Come on, I saw that, I _know _you're awake! Wake up!"

"Yuffie... not you again..." said Tifa, eyes still closed, seeming to feel Aeris' happy smile open on her own face.

"Hey! I resent that! Here I am, sitting by your bedside and everything, for _three days_ and you say 'not you again'?"

Tifa's eyes opened properly. "_Three days_!" Well, it seemed about right for the melodramatic ridiculous drama-queen – NOT the effect Tifa was going for.

"Uh-huh! Guess you were wrong about leaving in the morning," Yuffie grinned.

"Er, yeah... And you've been here the whole time?"

Yuffie hesitated, then admitted. "Welll... no. I don't reeeeally get why people are supposed to do that... Seems a bit pointless, you know? It wasn't like you were exactly engaging conversion! But I was here a good bit of the time!"

"Whoa..." Tifa looked around. 'Her' room, dominated by Yuffie's mess was almost giving her the patent-pending Kisaragi Glare right back. "So is this how Cloud felt all those times he had mystic premonitions...?" she asked vaguely.

"You had a mystic premonition?" asked Yuffie, eyes shining.

Tifa sat up. It wasn't really much of an effort. She actually felt - refreshed. OK. Good, even. "Not... er, not exactly. Pretty mystic though... Pretty weird..."

"What happened?"

Tifa wasn't sure she wanted to talk about it yet, not till she'd thought about it herself a bit more.

And she didn't have to.

"£ing hell!" someone yelled from downstairs as a door slammed. No prizes for guessing who it was. "Isn't anyone awake in this ££&ing place?"

"Saved by the '£ing hell',"muttered Tifa, as she and Yuffie hurried down to Cid to see what was the matter _this_ time.

They saw.

Tifa gasped. Yuffie yelled. Vincent, coming in through the back door, just stared. Cid was practically covered in blood. His shirt was torn right across the back and he was having difficulty standing properly.

After their stunned little moment, Shera rushed in, took a split-second glance at them, at Cid, and started giving orders. "Tifa, get some hot water. Vincent, bandages and cloths. Yuffie - get all your stuff off the sofa! And put an old sheet on it or something."

The three of them just continued to stare, but at Shera this time.

"Well?" she shouted. "Get on with it!"

They did so.

"Wow," whispered Yuffie as she pushed popcorn packets, magazines and a load of half-finished pencil sketches off the sofa and onto the floor. She sprinted up the stairs to get a sheet.

"Cid, what happened?" asked Vincent, almost managing to keep his voice calm. He quite didn't quite succeed.

"What's it - look like?" growled Cid, supported by Shera. She seemed to be ignoring the blood that was soaking in all over her clothes too. "I went for a walk - and some stupid £&ing monster got me."

"Coming throooough!" Yuffie bounded down the stairs and threw a yellowish sheet over the sofa.

"Can I ...lie down now?" Cid gasped for breath. "Or - would that be... too much trouble?"

Shera helped him towards the sofa. "I just don't want you ruining the furniture too," she told him.

"Damn..." Cid muttered, shaking his head.

Yuffie crouched down next to him, gingerly pulling the edges of the sheet out from under him. "Didn't you have a Restore with you?" she asked.

He shook his head again, and had the decency to look shamefaced. "Ain't needed one for ages. Thought there wasn't nothing that could give me real trouble these days."

"It looks like you've just found something," said Shera stonily, accepting the kettle, bowl and cloths from Tifa and Vincent. "Someone go refill the kettle."

They all started at once for the door, then Tifa and Vincent dropped back. Why not leave it to the ever-eager Yuffie...?

"Turn over," Shera instructed. "Let me see your back."

It looked to be the worst. Shera's mouth was a tight line as she wrung out a wet cloth and started to clean the wound.

"££&! What're you - damn! - doing to me, woman?"

"Stay still."

"OOWWW!"

"Cid, stop it."

"Bloody hell, do you realise how much this - AAah!- hurts?"

"Cid, _stop _it! You're acting so childishly! Stop screaming like - like a teenage girl!"

"Hey!" yelled Cid.

"EXCUSE ME!" yelled Yuffie from the kitchen.

"I'm no £ing coward!" Cid growled.

"Neither am I!" Yuffie shouted.

Shera grimaced. "OK, OK. Sorry Yuffie!"

"Sorry _Yuffie_? What about _me_?" asked Cid.

"Behave."

"Oh, fine..." Cid grumbled. "Me, a coward? I'm not a coward. Huh, this doesn't even hurt that muc- OW OW OOOOWW!"

Yuffie carried in the next kettle of water and emptied it into the bowl.

"Why don't you use materia?" she asked curiously.

"Wouldn't do much good for this anymore," Shera said flatly. "Besides, I'm a mechanic. I work with _real _things, not magic."

"She's right," groaned Cid. "Never underestimate the power of a real pair of hands - OW! GOD, SHERA ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?"

"No, I'm trying to keep you alive."

"Ha ha, very – ow – funny."

"But he's gonna be OK, right?" Yuffie asked, a little panicked, as she crouched down by the sofa again to watch the proceedings.

"I feel like a bloody museum exhibit here..." Cid complained. "Stupid monsters..."

"As long as he can talk like that," Shera confirmed, "he's absolutely fine."

"What actually attacked you?" asked Tifa.

Cid just shook his head. "No idea," he said at last. "I swear I never seen one before."

"What'd it look like?" asked Yuffie eagerly.

Tifa shot a warning glance at her and Vincent used his patented Look. "I doubt very much it was pelting him with materia," he said.

"Only thing it looked - aaah! - a bit like was one of those £&ing Jenova things."

"Jenova!" said Vincent sharply. "Are you sure?"

"Nah," Cid admitted nonchalantly. "May be completely wrong, but there was something about it... sorta reminded me..."

"Jenova..." Vincent bit his lip. "If it is..."

"But - we killed Jenova, didn't we?" interuptted Yuffie. "We killed it like six times!" Realisation set in. "Oh... right..."

"Exactly," said Tifa grimly. "What if there's another one, or lots, just hiding out there... How would we know?"

There was silence, broken only by Cid occasionally gasping and swearing under his breath.

"But..." began Yuffie. "Jenova never attacked like _that, _did it? It just used magic, right?"

Tifa sighed. "It's a mystery," she said. "I guess - we'll just keep a lookout and wait till it makes some sense."

"There doesn't seem to _be _any sense," said Vincent, visibly frustrated, "If it _is_ Jenova, why here, why now? If not, then... well, what is it? It's all so unclear..."

They waited.

"And...?" prompted Yuffie.

"What?" Vincent blinked, confused.

"Oh. Sorry, we were all just waiting for you to continue and bring some incomprehensible metaphor in," Yuffie explained. "Like comparing the unclarity or whatever to the cloudy sky." She nodded. "Yup. And then you'd say something about how the storm is coming." She looked around. "See? See? I can do Vincent even better than he can!"

Vincent Glared.

* * *

Cid refused to be moved from the sofa. All the next day he lay there, shouting at anyone who annoyed him and monopolizing the TV remote.

"Can't a sick man get any £&ing service around here?" he yelled. "Where's that tea already?"

Tifa brought it to him, smiling determinedly. "You seem in good spirits," she said.

"Yeah, I'm just peachy, me," he said sarcastically. "Hardly notice it after a while, y'know the pain all sorta molds together into a big juicy whole. Lovely, ain't it?"

"Are you sure we shouldn't get a medic or something? I mean - it is pretty serious..."

"Nah, I'm OK now. 'Sides," he muttered fiercely, avoiding Tifa's eyes, "you couldn't get no bloody medic better than Shera."

"Did I just hear right?" Tifa teased. "You said something nice about Shera?"

He shrugged, winced, and painfully put his shoulders back where they were before. "It's just the truth," he said simply. "She did a couple years medical back sometime. She's just the best there is around here. Best at most things, actually."

Tifa stared in amused silence.

Cid sighed. "Sure she does everything slow and £&ing painful, but she gets it done right."

"Yeah, guess that's the important thing."

"Yeah." Cid reached for the remote. "Oh -" he added. "_Don't_ tell her I said any of that."

* * *

Ah! There be plot!

Hehe. Gotta love Cid & Shera... Well, I love 'em anyway.

(insert usual petition for reviews here) Thank you!


	4. Calling Cloud

Part 4 : Calling Cloud

_"I don't have much of a problem talking to people."_

"Tifa..."

Tifa stared at herself in the mirror. She was resisting the ridiculous urge to get dressed up specially before she made a call to Cloud. He still had a PHS phone, she thought, but they'd both got out of the habit of using them. Now... well, maybe a nice dress and a decent shade of lipstick would give her confidence. Maybe. Maybe talking to herself would too, which was what she was doing.

_Go get Cloud..._ Aeris had said, or at least Tifa thought she had. Something in her memory had. Dreams... was it possible that...? Well, whatever. She was going to phone him and tell him to come here. At least now she had the pretext of Cid's injury now, if that could be called an 'at least'. She _was _going to phone him! It just at the moment seemed very, very difficult. They hadn't spoken in months.

"OK Tifa..." she said again. "It's no big deal... Cloud's known you since forever and..." She picked up the PHS. She put it down again. Time for more pep talks. "And - and he might not even be at home... or he might have lost the PHS... just phone and see..." She picked up the PHS. She put it down again. "Oh, I just can't do this!"

"Want some help, Tif?"

"Yuffie!" Tifa spun round to see the small ninja girl leaning nonchalantly in the doorway. "No! Go away!" she panicked.

"Meeep!" said Yuffie, meekly. "OK!" She left.

Breathing heavily, Tifa turned back to the mirror and the phone. "Right... come on... just pick it up and -"

"Look, Tifa..." It was Yuffie again, back in the doorway. "I could phone Cloud first if you'd rather."

"How long have you been eavesdropping?" said Tifa, partially furious.

"What, on you talking to yourself? About ten minutes."

"YUFFIE!"

"Yes? But hey, I'm serious. If it'd be easier I could talk to him first and then give you the PHS. I don't have much of a problem talking to people."

"Hey, are you saying that I do?" Tifa sighed. "Yeah, thanks Yuff, and I really mean that, but I think - I mean, I'll manage."

"You sure?"

Tifa nodded.

"OK, I'll stay here just to make sure you don't change your mind."

"Fine." She picked up the phone and defiantly hit a few buttons.

_Riing riing riing.._

"Hello?" someone said.

"Hello - Cloud? This is Tifa."

"Tifa! Hey!"

"Hey!" she said back. Well, he didn't sound like he hated her, at least.

"Hey, Tifa... Wow, it feels like, like months since we've talked..."

"It _is _months, I think."

"Yeah... suppose so..."

"Well, Tif, how've you been? What've you been doing?" He was sounding kind of _excited_, Tifa thought.

"Um... nothing too interesting really... You know that place in Nibelhelm? Still own it, but I... don't really spend too much time working there myself, just enough to pay the bills and all. So... yeah. Nothing much. You?"

"Yeah, same. I'm working in an amoury, would you believe it?"

"No more mercenerying, or whatever the word is, then?"

"Nah... guess that got a little old."

"Yeah," she said.

"Yeah..." he said.

"Um..." she said.

There was a second or two of silence. "Hey, Cloud - d'you think you could take some time off? Get over to Rocket Town? We could send the Highwind to come pick you up or -"

"We? Who?"

Tifa grinned. "Me, Cid, Shera, Vincent and Yuffie. I'm just visiting."

"What, and the others aren't?"

"Nuh-uh. Yuffie and Vincent _live _here, believe it or not. Housemates."

Cloud whistled down the phone. Tifa would have loved to see the look on his face. "They getting on well?" he asked.

"Not too bad, all things considered."

"Wow..."

"So, can you come?"

"Yeah, I think so... Any particular reason, other than just seeing your childhood friend again?"

"Um... well, there's certainly that..." she said shyly, "And... er... something's come up..."

"Huh?" There was that very defininate change in his voice, like the soldier in him had just woken up. "What happened?"

"It's-," she shook her head. "it's too confusing. Don't worry though. Just come in a couple days and you'll see. Do you need the Highwind?"

"Nah, don't bother, I'll manage. Don't want to get too out of shape..."

"OK," she grinned, then had a sudden thought. "Er - Cloud - if you're gonna be doing much walking... just- be careful, OK? And take a nice Restore with you."

"Um... OK..."

"You'll be _fine, _but..." she trailed off. "Look, just get here soon, right?"

"Yes sir!"

She raised her eyebrows. "Thanks."

"OK... I'll... be there in... three days? Or so. See you then, then."

"Yeah, see you."

"OK, bye Tif."

"Bye."

She hung up.

Tifa was staring at nothing in rapt silence. Then she started dancing around the room. She hugged Yuffie. She hugged Yuffie's toy moogle. She hugged the phone.

"Eeeee!" she said, and started singing a silly old nursery rhyme: "Oh, SOLIDER, SOLDIER, won't you marry me, with your musket fife and drum?"

"So it went OK, then?" grinned Yuffie, as Tifa grabbed her hands and they waltzed around the room.

When Tifa caused role-reversal by bouncing up and down the stairs for no apparent reason, Yuffie was forced to consider the Stupidity of Humanity. Example: both Tifa and Cloud seemed perfectly happy around and about each other, always had done, hated losing touch, but were both so darn touchy about getting close to each other that they hadn't spoken in months.

Yuffie shook her head in a Wise Manner.

Life didn't make sense.

* * *

When Tifa had calmed down slightly, she went downstairs again to help Shera prepare Cid's post-brunch-meal. She met Vincent coming up the stairs, looking very obviously shifty.

"Er... Vincent?" She stepped across the stairs to block his passage.

"What?" he snapped, swirling his cloak around so it absolutely covered every part of him. "Nothing's going on! Nothing!"

"Really." Tifa tackled him and revealed the object gripped very tightly in his gold claw. "A - a toilet roll?" she asked, understandably utterly bemused.

"I, er, finished the old one," explained Vincent.

"O-Kay..."

"Please Tifa, just let me past!" begged Vincent. "I've got to get this to the bathroom quick!"

"O-Kay..." said Tifa again, shrugging and stepping aside.

"And please, please don't tell Yuffie!" he called after her as he sped by.

Tifa shrugged again. _Male pride's certainly an interesting thing... _she thought.

* * *

...indeed :) Wise thoughts from our female protagonists here, lovely. Um, reviews? Are appreciated! Thank you, love you! 


	5. Alliances and Annoyances

Chapter 5 – in which the Plot continues, more people arrive and I generally think it gets a bit more interesting.

Part 5 : Alliances And Annoyances

_"I can't get away from these godawful love scenes!"_

"Tifa."

_Uhhhhhh... go away... _

"Tifa!"

_Aaarrgh... why can't people just let me sleep?_

"Tifa, I thought you might like to know..."

_Vincent, I do NOT want to know, I want to SLEEP._

"Cloud's here."

_CLOUD?_

_HERE?_

_NOW?_

"WHY DIDN'T YOU _TELL_ ME?"

"I... I just did."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Where is he?"

"Downstairs. I'm waking everyone up, but I thought you might like to know first."

Tifa shooed him out of the room. "Yes, yes, thank you very very much Vincent, now go away I need to get changed oh my - what am I gonna wear... aaaaaah, Cloud's here! I don't -"

"Tifa..." moaned Yuffie, turning over and trying to curl the pillow around her head. "Shudduuuuuup..."

"Yuffie, _Cloud's _here! I can't just shut up, I need to think, I-"

"You need to think out loud...?"

"Yes! I - Oh whatever." She threw open the dresser drawers. "Oh, _why _didn't I pack something decent..."

"You don't wanna look too dressed up," yawned Yuffie, sitting up resignedly.

"Yeah, I know..."

"But then, you need to look like you've made a bit of an effort."

"Yeah..."

"But not _too _much."

"I know..."

"You need to look mysterious," instructed Yuffie, getting into the role.

"..."

"But not inaccessible. You must be -"

"YUFFIE!"

"Yeah, OK, but isn't that what everyone stresses about? Hey, I don't have a clue what I'm talking about!" She bounced on the bed happily. "Oh, but you should probably hurry up, otherwise you'll be leaving Cloud to Cid's tender mercies."

"Oh, help..." Tifa sighed and bundled her hair up any old way. Skirt and plain top. Same old, same old. Whatever. At least she felt comfortable. "You coming, Yuff?"

"Yeah, I'll come in a minute, just let me get changed."

"OK... um, I'll wait for you, shall I?"

"Tifa!" Yuffie grinned. "Are you _scared _to go see Cloud again by yourself? Do you need little Yuff to hold your hand?"

"No! Fine, you just stay here!"

Tifa determinedly stamped out of the room and took the stairs heavily three at a time.

She tripped on the rug at the bottom.

"Ooof! Ow!"

"Wha -? Tifa!"

Tifa groaned inwardly as she slowly lifted her eyes from the floor. _Nice going..._

Cloud helped to her feet.

"Hi, Tif," he said, with a hint of a smile.

"Cloud..." She stepped back to look at him. "Hey. Wow - I mean - Cloud - your hair!"

"My hair?" He raised an eyebrow. "I haven't done anything with it..."

"Yeah, I know - it just - it just always looks like _more _in real life, y'know - larger than life - Oh whatever Cloud, just give me a hug or-"

They hugged.

After about fifteen seconds of watching with waning interest, Cid coughed loudly.

Then the house shaking to loud bounces down the stairs announced Yuffie's presence. She raised both eyebrows at the scene and proceded to mime being sick. After a further fifteen seconds she added sound effects.

"O_kay_, cut it out Yuffie," said Tifa, letting go of Cloud. "Cloud; this is Yuffie, remember her?" she said sarcastically. "She stole all your materia once and generally did everything make us believe that we were _never_ teenagers."

"Yeah, I remember Yuff alright."

"Hey Cloud!" Yuffie waved and bounced up to him. "So, do I get a long passionate embrace too?"

"Um... no."

Yuffie stuck her tongue out. "Blaaaa, meanie."

Vincent and Shera walked into the main room.

"Sanity returns!" said Cid thankfully. "Shera, this sucks! I can't escape from these godawful love scenes."

They nodded sympathetically. Tifa glowered. Yuffie smirked.

"Well," continued Cid, "Everyone know each other, right? Isn't this lovely. Cloud, you plannin' on joining this bunch of idiots taking up my house?"

"Hi Cid." For the first time, Cloud walked around to the sofa. "Cid!" he exclaimed, almost jumping back in shock, "What happened?"

"He's just posing," said Yuffie scathingly. "It's just his back, and that's nearly better. He could walk if he could be bothered. And he _doesn't _need that bandage!" She glared pointedly at the ostentatious white cloth around Cid's head.

"Well, OK," amended Cloud, "What _did _happen to him that was so terrible?"

The others looked at each other. "Want I should enlighten him?" Yuffie asked helpfully.

"No!" said Tifa. "I mean - Shera, can you explain everything?"

"What's going on?" asked Cloud, looking around at the suddenly serious faces. "Is this the 'something came up' you mentioned?"

"Something like that."

"Some £&ing weird monster attacked me an' they think it's Jenova an' Vincent had a paranoia attack," summarized Cid.

"I thought _Shera _was going to explain," said Tifa through clenched teeth.

"Didn't hear her, did you?" retorted Cid, "Damn woman never stands up for herself."

"Sorry..." said Shera.

"Wait - _Jenova?_" asked Cloud.

"_Maybe_," said Yuffie,

"It's a possibility," said Vincent at the same time. They looked at each other and shrugged.

"It was something that perhaps looked vaguely like it," said Tifa, spreading her hands hopelessly. "We don't know. We thought maybe you -"

"AHEM," interuptted Cid, "_We _did not think anything! First I heard of it was when he turned up ten minutes ago."

"Well, OK," said Tifa, feeling her face getting hot, "_I _thought maybe if we all got - back together again we could do something... I mean, it seems pretty dangerous... maybe if we all just... well, went and found it for a start..."

"Just like 'old times', you mean?" Cloud suggested with a humourless grin.

Tifa shrugged.

"What about Barret and Red and that stuffed cat thing?" asked Cid.

"Cait Sith," said Yuffie.

"Reeve," said Vincent.

"Yeah, him. Do we go an' collect all them lot too?"

Tifa looked at Cloud and around at the others. "Why not?" she said.

Yuffie laughed. "What - a reunion for us all? Why not call it the Real Jenova Reunion in honour of the weirdy creatures?"

"That's not funny," said Cloud.

Yuffie grimaced. "Yeah, I know. Sorry."

Shera was hovering nervously and drifting towards the door. "I'll - I'll make some tea, shall I?"

"Yeah, you do that," said Cid absently.

Shera went into the kitchen.

"Need any help?" asked Yuffie, to probably everyone's surprise. "It's getting too depressing in here," she explained, and left too.


	6. Tea For Six

Hello again! ...Mm, tis a stressful real life to be sure... Have fun :)

* * *

Part 6 : Tea for Six

_"I suppose he just wants to be out there, changing the world."_

"Tifa..."

"Mmm?" Tifa looked up. Shera's anxious eyes were on her.

"You're not drinking your tea... Is it alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine," Tifa said absently. Everyone else seemed to be actually drinking it to avoid talking.

"Would you prefer hot chocolate?"

Tifa shook her head, smiling slightly. Where had the Shera of a couple days ago gone? Where had the take-command-competent-medic-life-saver got to? _Just a crunch-time reflex maybe... well, at least it's there. _ "Shera, you _know _I love your tea. You know _everyone _loves your tea. Stop worrying."

"I'm sorry..."

Cloud looked at Tifa and nodded towards Shera, head down again. His look was something along the lines of _Nothing's changed then?_

Yuffie skipped out of the kitchen. "Cookie anyone?" she said hopefully and bounced around distributing them by throwing them from ever increasing distances. It was accurate throwing of course, but just a little unnerving.

She leaned against Cid's sofa and munched on her own cookie.

"Look, guys," she said, "if we're going to go get Red and Cait and Barret, shouldn't we do it soon? I mean, it's kinda pointless just waiting around and doing nothing, and it might be really dangerous!"

"You mean you're just impatient," translated Vincent.

"Yeah, that too. So how about it?"

No one said anything.

"Aw, come on, wake up guys!"

"OK," said Tifa, shaking herself. "Barret's in Corel, Nanaki and Reeve... well, they shouldn't be too hard to get hold of."

"Them being top politicians and all," grinned Yuffie.

Cid gave a snort. "I still think they only got voted in for novelty value... I mean - a cat who rides on a stuffed moogle for Urban Development guy?"

"They did vote for _Reeve, _not Cait Sith specifically," Cloud reminded him, finally looking up from the staring contest he'd apparently been having with his cup of tea. "Anyway, it's basically the job he had before."

"Yeah, yeah," Cid waved it aside. "A talking red dog for Environment Minister then, that's pretty £(&ing novel."

"Yeah, it kinda surprised me that he wanted to go for it... I thought he was just going to stick to Cosmo Canyon." Cloud shrugged. "I suppose he just wants to be out there, changing the world."

The moment hung.

"I still say it's novelty value," muttered Cid.

"Well I didn't see _you _running for office," said Shera,

"Of course I didn't run! One town and one woman's quite enough for me!"

Shera smiled. "You're not exactly in a position to moan then - you voted for him, didn't you?"

"Yeah, course, we all did. Yeah -"

"I didn't!" said Yuffie chirpily. "I voted for Neo-Shinra, didn't I?"

"What?" exclaimed Cloud, and the others all stared.

"Joke!" Yuffie rolled her eyes. "I'm 17, can't vote, _remember_? Sheesh, you guys act like you've been living in a crypt!"

"Hmph, I resent that."

"No special offence to you, Vinnie, honest."

"None taken. But don't call me Vinnie."

"Oh, alright, Vincent..."

"Thank you."

"...ee-kins."

"Yuffie!"

Tifa's laugh exploded. Then she said, "Look, OK, I think Yuffie had a point _somewhere _back there... about how we should get on with this?"

"Oh yeah," said Yuffie happily, "My point. I did have one, didn't I?"

"Yes... Anyway... None of them should be hard to find, so... Can we take the Highwind?"

"Sure, whatever you like!" said Cid, "Y'know, go nuts, drive it into craters, destroy the bloody thing, see if I care! ...NO."

"Pweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-" started Yuffie.

Cid reconsidered hastily. "Alright! But only if you shut up. And only if I'm in command of it."

"-ease. Thanks Cid." She grinned at the others. "See my cool negotiation skills?"

"Alright," said Cloud, sighing as he made another attempt to make the group make sense. "But I think it would be quicker if we split up, take the Highwind to the furthest away place and get another team to wherever else..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Yuffie, and then looked nervous. "Look, we don't _all _need to go at all, do we?"

"Yeah we do," said Cid suddenly. "We'll need at least five of us on the Highwind - dunno if the crew'll all be ready to go just now."

"Uh-unh!" Yuffie walked slowly backwards, shaking her head for emphasis. "No WAY are you getting me on that! Look, the rest of you get on that stupid, ugly, sadistic thing that can hardly fly," - She watched Cid flinch at every insult - "and I'll go wherever else by myself."

"You're not walking."

"Vince, it'll be _fine_..." she moaned.

"It might not be."

"I've been out on my own since I was fourteen!"

"Not with Jenova creatures on the loose."

"It might not _be _Jenova... And anyway, it was just one."

"There might be more."

"Man, you are such a pessimist!"

Everyone else was just watching this dialogue, waiting for it to play out.

Vincent sighed. "I've got reason to want you to be careful."

Yuffie sighed too. "Well, OK, if you're so smart, how do _you _think I should travel without that stupid plane?"

"You could use Cid's sports car, couldn't you?" suggested Tifa

Yuffie raised her eyebrows. "Cid?" she asked innocently.

"No!" Cid hobbled over to the upturned car and put his arms around the hood. "Don't anyone touch my baby!"

"Besides," put in Shera, "the engine sort of exploded a couple days ago, while you were asleep, Tifa."

"Huh?" said Cloud.

"Never mind. But - not the car, then..." said Tifa.

"See?" said Yuffie.

"A chocobo," said Vincent, unexpectedly.

"Erm..."

"I'd let you use my Golden," said Cloud.

"You would?" asked Yuffie, stunned.

"-if it weren't the other side of the continent at Bill's."

Yuffie shrugged. "But otherwise you'd let me?"

"Er, no. But it sounded good, right?"

"Man, shuddup."

"Hey!" yelled Cid, at last letting his darling car go, "There something wrong with the chocobos round here?"

"That's a point," said Tifa. "They're decent enough near Rocket Town. Yuffie - you have a Chocobo Lure?"

Yuffie gave her a look that sufficed to say: 'Name me any one materia that I _don't_ have and I'll drop dead... or possibly just go get it.' But all she said was: "Mastered."

"Well there you go then!"

Yuffie turned to Vincent. "That good enough for you? D'you think chocobos can run fast enough or should I just practice sprinting?"

Vincent smiled, slightly, but he still smiled. "I think a chocobo would do," he said.

* * *


	7. The Trouble With Chocobos

Part 7 : The Trouble With Chocobos

_"...Save the world again?"_

"WARK!"

"You think so too?" said Yuffie. She was talking to the chocobo. At least SOMEONE understood that _Tifa_ was completely to blame for the situation in which she, Yuffie, was heading through the mountains on a moulting and apparently insane chocobo - aiming for what she never thought she'd ever ever have to aim for - to find Barret.

Yuffie was sure it couldn't be anything serious and she probably shouldn't take it seriously, but nothing Barret had ever said to her had been free of some sort of insult. True, the same could be probably said about everything she'd ever said to _him_, but... still...

It didn't mean she deserved to go find the man and somehow persuade him to follow her all the way back to Rocket Town.

"WARK!" said the chocobo.

"Yeah," said Yuffie. "Not fair, is it?"

"WARK WARK!"

"Uh huh."

"WARK WARK WARK!"

"OK, now you're getting annoying."

"WARKWARKWARKWARK!" it said angrily and started running in circles. Yuffie flung her hands around its neck for dear life and kicked it to see if that would make it stop.

It didn't.

The chocobo WARKed some more and sprinted off in the direction they had just come.

"STOP!" yelled Yuffie, having difficulty holding on.

Helpfully, the chocobo did not stop, in fact it speeded up and started running towards the nearest rockface.

"STOP NOW!" Yuffie stared at the rapidly approaching mountain and tucked her head down against the chocobo's neck in a sort of last-chance-brace-position.

At the last moment, the chocobo changed direction and Yuffie was thrown back to her original seating position, with a couple yellow feathers up her nose.

"Why don't they make these things with reins?" she muttered as they careered forward again in some other apparently totally random direction. "Some people have no consideration for-aaaaaAAAAA!"

She landed painfully on her side and rolled quickly away to avoid being trampled. "Gotcha!" On second thoughts, it probably hadn't been such a bright idea to grab the chocobo by its foot, but she'd done it now and it was a bit late for second thoughts. "Stay - still -"

To her huge surprise, the chocobo obliged and stood stock still. Yuffie pulled herself to her feet. She squared up to the yellow feathery face and put her hands firmly on its shoulders.

"OK," she instructed it, calmer than was probably reasonable. "We're going to try this again. And you're going to _behave_, OK?"

"Wark..."

"...I'll take that as a yes."

"WARK!"

"Er, right. Maybe if I talk chocobo you'll understand me, wark?"

"WARKWARKWARK!"

"What the-"

Something behind her made a low ominous sound that didn't sound the least bit like "wark".

She turned around.

"OH MY - RUN!"

She leapt onto the chocobo again. It still didn't move.

"RUN!" she screamed again, throwing her weight forward. "RUN! - I mean - WARK!"

The huge Thing slashed a huge claw through the air. Then the chocobo ran.

"Keep-running-don't-look-back, keep-running-don't-look-back," Yuffie chanted to herself as the chocobo sped forward, warking furiously.

* * *

"Junon, right?" asked Tifa for the zillionth time. 

"Where else?" Cid raised his eyes to the heavens.

"...Cloud?" _TALK to me, damnit!_

"What."

Tifa looked over at him. Now they had a serious mission and all, he'd snapped shut again. Well, to be fair; up until then, it had seemed a bit too good to be true. It... wasn't anything she couldn't cope with. Nothing she hadn't seen before.

"You OK?"

"Yes..."

She did what she could. Talked to him; you had to just keep hoping he'd get the hint and say something back, but it was a long shot.

"Are we all set?" asked Shera, sticking her head into the Highwind's - for want of a better word - cockpit.

It was not the usual crew. Cid was happily installed in the main pilot's seat, with Tifa rather less happily next to him as emergency co-pilot. She had no idea how to fly. Cloud and Vincent were to manage navigation... and Shera, of course, was engineering, tea making, and any other job anyone else had forgotten.

"All aboard?" Tifa attempted a grin. She had been realising just how uneasily quiet it had all gone since Yuffie had left.

There was a messy chorus of 'Yeah,'s, 'aye-aye's and 'what d'you ing think?'s.

And then the Highwind, at long last, took to the skies.

* * *

Yuffie was feeling slightly better, now that there was no longer a twenty foot spike-clawed generally-evil-looking monster chasing her.

She and the chocobo had also reached a sort of agreement: it would go the way she told it, and she would NOT on any account attempt to speak chocobo to it. It seemed to unnerve, or possibly just terrify, the yellow birdie.

The chocobo eating half Yuffie's lunch had not been part of the bargain, but she hadn't been able to do much about that.

Consequently, she was very hungry when she reached the town of North Corel, and as a consequence of _that_ her initial instinct was to head straight for the new café (part of the government's fairly sucessful redevelopment plan for the place). That café was calling to her. _No! _she told herself, _I have more important things to do! _The café was still calling to her. A waitress or someone inside walked up to the window presented new temptation in the form of a sign that said of "Double chocolate milkshake, buy one get one free! Today only!".

"Unnggghhh..." said Yuffie, her feet starting to walk in that direction of their own accord.

Then -

"Excuse me, is this your chocobo?"

"Ohmigod yes!" Yuffie spun round to face the small-ish girl who was attempting to keep hold of the fiercely struggling chocobo she'd accidently let go of in her chocolate-milkshake-fascination. "Sorry!"

"It's alright, I like chocobos."

This seemed hard to believe. Well, on second thoughts, it wasn't TOO unbelievable - one just had to assume that the feeling was not at all mutual by the way that the chocobo seemed to be trying to peck the girl's eyes out.

Yuffie carefully grabbed hold around its neck again. "Behave!"

The girl giggled and started to leave, but Yuffie called after her, remembering something. Oh yes, the reason she'd come here...

"Hey wait! I'm looking for someone here. D'you know him? Big fellow, swears a lot, kinda annoying to spend more than ten minutes with? Name's Barret Wallace?"

"Oh yeah! He's my dad!" The girl bounced up and down excitably.

_Whooops._

"Er... sorry. Ummm... do you know where he is now? Only I kinda really need to talk to him."

"Yeah, he'll be at my house! Come on!" She bounced off.

"Er, OK," said Yuffie, feeling for once in her life completely out-bounced by someone.

* * *

"The hell you doin' here!"

The house was quite large. The furniture was simple but nice, and the room was tidy. One wall was covered in a child's drawings and some blurry photographs.

Barret himself, however - somehow managing even to _sit _aggressively in a an extremely incongruous pink armchair - had not changed a bit.

"Hey Barret!" Yuffie grinned incredibly widely and bounced up to him, just to prove that she still could.

"Nuh-uh, don' come any closer!"

Yuffie mentally debated giving him a huge hug just to check the reaction, but decided that was going waaay too near his gun-arm. She settled for: "Great to see you! ...Didya miss me?"

"No."

She pouted. "I'm hurt," she said petulantly.

"Crazy kid," he muttered.

"Ya think?"

There was a short pause. Then - "Oh what the £. C'mere, Yuffster."

Yuffie had had many surprising, strange, and surreal experiences over her seventeen and a quarter years. Not one of them could measure up to the absolutely unprecedented one of Barret Wallace embracing her in a heartfelt, bone-crushing embrace.

"Missed you, kid."

"Missed you," said Yuffie, surprising herself. But - hey, so what? she thought and shrugged, with difficultly.

Barret let go. "Gut reaction," he said gruffly. "Won't happen again."

"Agreed," she said fervently.

"That's damn friendly," Barret observed, sitting down again.

Yuffie nodded sagely. "Yeah, like all those times you called me a stupid brat."

"I had a £(ing good reason!"

"Whatever. Hey, you gonna let me sit down or what?"

He rolled his eyes. "Make yerself comfortable. Mind if I ask again what the hell you're actually doing here?"

Yuffie plopped down on a sofa. "Oooh!" she squealed bouncing up and down on it. "Cool sofa!"

Barret glared and cocked his gun-arm.

"Geez! Yeah, OK." She made the proposal. "So like, you wanna come back and join up with Cloud an' Tif an' Vincent an' Cid an' Cait an' Red an' me an' save the world again?"

Barret stared. "This some kind of a joke?"

"Nuh-uh! Seriously, some weirdo monster attacked Cid, and Vincent got paranoid and said it was Jenova and Cloud and Tifa are at Cid's house too - or they were, now they've all gone off to get Red and Reeve - and they're being SOOOO annoying acting all lovestruck half the time and not speaking the rest of it and Cid's still a moody idiot and swears worse than you, but ohmigods - SHERA was so cool a coupla days back and-"

Barret buried his face in his good hand. "STOP!"

She did so, shrugging. "See? Anyway, you wanna come?"

Barret looked helplessly around him. "I - damn, I dunno!"

"Pweeeeeeeeeeeee-"

"Alright, alright! Just SHUDDUP!"

"-ease!" _Works every time, _she noted.

"But what am I gonna do with Marlene?"

"Ohh, was she that girl?"

"Whaddya think?"

"Hey, I dunno, I never saw her before! Well... she could come too!"

"She's _six years old_, idiot."

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean she'd actually _fight_ the evil monster..."

There was a cheerful voice from the doorway. "Hey, what evil monster? Can I PLEASE come? I'll kill it!" And Marlene jumped in, swinging a stick around like a sword and occasionally turning it into a gun and making bangbang noises.

Yuffie giggled. Barret glared at her.

Yuffie then tried being reasonable. "There's lots of other kids in Rocket Town now, you know. And, hey, there's probably a day-care centre or something now to go with the museum..."

"What museum? The hell you talking about?"

"Daddy!" Marlene piped, widening her eyes and staring up at him in calculated shock. Yuffie decided she liked this girl.

"Uh... sorry. But what museum?"

"Long story," said Yuffie, grinning, "but _basically _what happened is Cid - you know, with the rocket and the tea obsession and worse mouth than you - and Shera - you remember her? She's always kinda -"

"Alright!" Barret covered his ears. "OK, it can wait, let's go already!"

"You coming then?" Whooohooo!"

"WHOOOHOOOO!" yelled Marlene, not to be outdone by someone ten years older than her, and causing Barret to visibly wince at the pitch and volume... "WE'RE GONNA GO AND GET A MONSTER!"

Yuffie liked this girl a lot.

"Er... something like that, sweetie," said Barret as he went upstairs to pack.

* * *


	8. United We Stand

Whee, more story! Sorry it's been quite a while... the usual school situation worse than usual, but we're not meant to mention such things here. Anyway, here's more! A double-bill of chapters as usual. I think the ficcy gets better... certainly more plotful from here on in...?

This is now dedicated to the lovely people who sent me an e-mail a couple days ago saying they'd been having fun reading this ficcy :) That made me so happy! I'm easily made happy, OK. But I like it if something I write makes other people happy... So - ChocoChick87 and your sister (sorry, I don't know your name! ;;;) - this one's for you! Enjoy!

Part 8 : United We Stand

_"Anyone can use a gun..."_

"Tifa, Cloud, hi!"

It was an office, which shouldn't have been such a surpise. There was a desk, fine, they could deal with that... it was just a little unusual to see a red lion-beast-thing sitting behind it on a mat. Nanaki leapt gracefully over the desk over to them and extended a paw.

Tifa looked at it.

"Huh?" she said.

Nanaki looked imploringly at them, the sweetness in his gaze hitting them with a powerful reminder that he was, after all, still really a teenager in human terms.

"You're supposed to shake it," he said helpfully.

They obliged, awkwardly. "Isn't that just a human thing?" Cloud asked.

Nanaki shuffled his feet. "Yeah," he said, "but they said I should try it too. It's a bit ridiculous really, but I don't see the harm."

"ANYWAY," said Tifa, "that was all completely 100 totally irrelevant. Hi, Red!"

He did his version of a grin. "Hi," he said again. "Sit down?"

"Thanks."

"Look, um, Red..." said Tifa, looking to Cloud for support here. "Do you think you could take some time out of your schedule?"

"Er... maybe... why, exactly?"

Cloud finally spoke up. "Just... something's come up..." he said, grinning crookedly at Tifa. "To be more specific, Cid got attacked by a monster that might -"

" - possibly, on the off-chance-" Tifa interuppted, trying to be reassuring.

"- be something to do with Jenova."

It was credit to how much Red had already learnt in politics that he didn't flinch, or even visibly react at the news. He sat back down on the mat.

"...Right," he said. "So, do we all meet up again and investigate?"

"Something like that," said Tifa, grinning.

_Great minds think alike..._ she thought. _Crazy people too, probably, but... um..._

_

* * *

_

On another floor, Cid, Shera and Vincent were also meeting up with an old friend...

"Eugh! That's freaky!" exclaimed Cid. "That is quite possibly the damn freakiest thing I have ever seen..."

"What, this?" said Reeve - only the sound came out of the mouth of a toy cat seated on the desk...

"How do you DO that?" asked Shera, curious in spite of herself.

Reeve pulled up his sleeve to reveal the metal bracelet around his wrist.

"...?" said Vincent with polite incomprehension.

Cait Sith giggled as Reeve grinned slightly. "Bit of magic, bit of science... that wasn't the hard part actually..." It was a relief to see the man's words actually coming out of his own mouth this time. "Actually, the biggest challenge was -"

"Yeah, yeah, shuddup already," said Cid.

Reeve pouted and Cait Sith hung his head.

"Very smart. Look, you coming or what?"

"On this reunion Jenova-killing thing? Sure. Well - that is, take Cait with you, so I can be in two places at once and manage here if anything major comes up."

They all nodded. Cid said: "Yeah, that's better. Er, no offence, but it's kind of scary seeing you as a person..."

"Hey!"

* * *

"So!" said Tifa cheerfully as she could, "Everyone here?"

_Dumb question_, she thought, _but who cares?_

The weird thing was the way everyone had just gravitated back to their old positions on the Highwind - with the exception of Cid, of course, who was steering, and the addition of Shera. It all felt so unchanged. Something suddenly felt an awful lot like nostalgia...

"Just like the old days, huh?" Cloud grimaced.

Tifa returned the shaky smile. "Yep. Here we go again..."

There was a moan-yell from somewhere else on the ship. "Guys?" Yuffie, of course. "Are we going or what? Only I don't want to spend a minute longer than I have to on this stupid airship! I'm starting to feel sick, OK?"

"While we're not even moving?" asked Cid incredulously to no one in particular.

"I think it's a physchological thing," said Vincent helpfully.

"What the..." Cid shrugged. "Right, OK, whatever. You heard the girl! Let's get the hell outta here!"

Cid slammed his hand down on the ignition, and the others all cheered. All except Yuffie, who moaned.

"So... where's this freaky monster thing anyway?" asked Barret irritably after a few seconds in the air. He had been in a bit of bad mood ever since Yuffie had neglected to tell him that they were travelling all the way to Rocket Town _by chocobo._

Cid sighed. "We don't know, moron. You guys need keep a lookout and... get yourselves prepared or something and I'll steer this thing."

Yuffie suddenly swung around the door frame. "Hey," she said casually. "It's getting really boring over there."

They just stared at her.

She continued. "Yeah, would you guess what? I don't feel sick!"

Red broke the astonished silence. "I suppose it's always possible you could grow out of it...?" he suggested.

"Oh man, that'd be so cool... So, what's up?"

Tifa shrugged. "Um... just your average monster-lookout... 'Cept that no one knows what to look for except Cid and he's steering."

"Believe me," said Cid, not turning around, "you'll know it when you see it!"

"I saw it too!" said Yuffie, then launched into a dramatic retelling of her close-encounter-on-chocobo-back.

"Is everyone prepared?" said Cloud seriously, interuptting after five minutes.

"What, for fighting a weirdy monster most of us have never seen and we know absolutely nothing about?" asked Yuffie cheerfully. "Yeah, pretty much, don't you think?"

"Thanks, Yuffie."

"My pleasure. Oh come on, you _did _ interupt me."

"Shera-" said Tifa suddenly, "Do you actually have a weapon?"

Shera blinked. "Actually, no... sorry..."

"Borrow one of Vincent's guns!" said Yuffie. "Anyone can use a gun."

"No one who can use a gun would say that," said Vincent gravely.

"Bllaaaaaah." Yuffie stuck her tongue out. "Right, OK, I'll go and get the Winchester shall I?"

"Yuffie!" protested Vincent as Yuffie ran towards the door.

"You know where Vincent's guns are?" asked Tifa.

Yuffie stopped to hang on the door long enough to answer. "Some of them. He's got like a bazillion scattered everywhere around here." She ignored Vincent, and bounded down the stairs.

"..." Vincent shook his head hopelessly.

"Um... I _can_ actually use a gun," said Shera quietly.

Tifa grinned at the back of Cid's head. "She really can do everything," she murmured and thought she saw Cid twitch.

Yuffie was back, waving the gun around. She offered it to Shera, but pulled it back at the last second. "First," she said and Glared at Vincent, "I do SO know how a gun works. See; _this _thing's the handle-"

"-Actually, Yuffie -"

"Shh! I know what I'm talking about!"

"Um, I don't think-"

"-And if I pull _this _thing-"

"Yuffie, NO!" yelled everyone else, running for cover.

"JOKE, guys!" said Yuffie, handing the Winchester to Shera who was now cowering under a chair. "Geez, I do know what the trigger is..."

"I - er, I think you'd better stick to your shiruken..." Vincent said, getting up and shaking his cloak out. "_Not _, of course," he added seeing her Glare, "that you can't be equally dangerous with that weapon..."

"Hey, guys!" Cloud interuptted, pointing out of the window. "Our monster, remember?"

Tifa ran towards him. "Is that it?"

"...I think it just might be..."

"OK, Cid, land now!"

"££&! Whaddya think I'm doing?"

"Well, it looks to me like we're _flying _actually..."

"Shut your damn mouth, Yuffie."

* * *


	9. Our Monster

Ooh, things get serious...! Well, sort of.

* * *

Part 9 : Our Monster

_"Let's MOSEY!"_

Tifa looked around.

"...Well, where'd it GO?"

"In the trees maybe?-"

"-It'd cut half of 'em down..."

"Maybe it's behind those hill or something..."

They stood scratching their heads outside the Highwind. It shouldn't possible to lose a twenty foot tall monster, but they'd done it.

"Or maybe it dug a biiiiig tunnel and -"

"OK, guys!" said Cloud, "Let's get organized!"

"Who made you leader?" muttered Barret. "Nah, I don't have any objections... I just wondered..."

"Thanks... Look, if we divide into 4 groups-"

"Ooh! I pick Vincent. I wanna have The Claw protectin' me!"

"Well, I pick Cid so I can make sure he doesn't kill himself."

Tifa and Cloud looked at each other. "Cloud?"

"Sure," Cloud shrugged.

"Well, ain't that _wonderful_." Barret looked around at Red and Cait Sith. "I get the Shinra puppet -"

"Put the past behind you, Barret..." sighed Red.

"-an' the young politician-philosopher. _Great_."

"You don't like us?" Cait looked almost comically dismayed and even his moogle contrived to look upset.

"Ahem!" said Cloud. "We can't waste time here! It's gotta be somewhere around here. If we all try to somehow drive it -"

"Yeah right, just _drive _a &ing twenty foot monster around..." muttered Barret.

"If we _try _to get it to the centre of this valley, we should be able to all fight it together. OK? Right! Let's-,"

"Don't you _dare_..." growled Barret.

"Let's MOSEY!" Instinctively he hi-fived Tifa and they ran off.

"Damn pair of lovebirds..." muttered Cid. "C'mon Shera."

"Can you run in that thing?" asked Yuffie, dubiously eying Vincent's cloak.

"Yes! Well, sort of..."

"I'll race you then! We gotta get round to the other side of this hill, OK?" She sprinted off.

"Urgh..." said Vincent, starting after her. "Whose bright idea was this?"

Red looked around at his group. "How about _we _start from _this _side of the valley?" he suggested, diplomatically.

"OK," said Barret grudgingly. "Sounds good."

Cait Sith jumped up and down on his Moogle. "Alright! Come on guys, we got us a monster to fight!"

* * *

"Have we..." Tifa puffed as she and Cloud trudged across the side of the hill. "Given any... thought... to how we're actually meant to... fight this... thing...?"

"Not... really... Only, maybe we could - THERE IT IS!"

"Where?" But she'd seen it by then. And she could see Yuffie and Vincent streaking towards it at something way past full speed. "Come on Cloud, let's GO!"

They ran. Twenty seconds later, they heard Cid and Shera running from behind them. Then Red, Barret and Cait came variously running and sort of bouncing. Cloud's original plan was... sort of... working. They had the Thing backed onto the steep vine-covered rockface of some sort of hill.

"Long range weapons and magic ONLY!" Cloud yelled. "Don't anyone get too close to it!"

"Like we were going too..." Yuffie muttered as she took aim and threw the Conformer straight at the Purple-Clawed-Thing's - head...?

The weapon made contact and spun back towards her again, hardly inflicting any visible damage - and she barely had time to catch it before she had to duck under the fierce claw slash the Thing retaliated with. This Thing could take more than ten feet in a stride, she realised, dismayed. _Trouble. _

"Little help here?" she shouted as Cloud and others got there.

Vincent was firing as fast as he could, but it didn't seem to be doing a huge amount of damage either, and he kept having to run around to to the other side to avoid getting his head rather irreparably removed from the rest of his body.

Cloud charged in, sword flashing, straight for the monster's back.

"What was that about _long range, _Cloud?"

He ignored her. "Just try to keep it busy on your side too!"

"Sure..."

"Someone sense for its weak points!" yelled Cid.

Cait Sith bounded forward and focused for a second. "It doesn't have any!" he yelled back helpfully.

Tifa decided to try any old magic. "Ice3!" It sent the beast wheeling towards her, roaring in fury, and she rolled breathlessly out of the way as Barret's gunfire arrived to distract the monster's attention from the other side. It was so _fast_ as well as vicious, that was the problem... That and the fact it had no ascertainable weaknes... _HOW are we meant to keep this up?_

A fierce howl from Red, and the sky was suddenly covered with bright stars. The huge blast of magic that shot down with his limit break at least gave them a few seconds to catch their breath -

And the Thing actually staggered under the power as Red jumped back. Then -

"What the (?" yelled Cid -

It careered straight for the ivy wall - and pushed through it, into the hill itself.

"Caves?" cried Shera in astonishment as they all ran after it.

They passed right into the hill, stood for a second in a large dark cave, hearing huge footsteps echoing to deafening levels - the floor shook - then the walls shook too -

"Uh, guys!" yelled Cait Sith, as the first rocks started to fall.

"Get away from the entrance!" Cloud shouted, staring up at it for a second.

They all piled against each other, further into the cave. Rocks shifted and fell and fell and covered the entrance. The daylight disappeared. There was silence.

Tifa opened her eyes.

No entrance. Nothing. Just... a new rock wall.

"...Everyone OK?" asked Shera.

"Yeah..."

"Ugh... yep..."

Tifa nodded before realising that wasn't very noticable in the pitch darkness. "Yeah."

"Get _away _from the entrance?" said Yuffie bitterly. "_What _a smart idea. We're _stuck _in here now you realise?"

"Shera!" Cid barked, "See any way to bust us outta this?"

Shera felt along the fallen rock. Near completely packed solid. "I don't _see_ anything..." she muttered. "No... even if I had a load of explosives I doubt I could manage it without sending the whole thing crashing down... I'm no expert with munitions, and what we need is an expert. And a lot of explosives."

"What we £&ing need is Jessie," said Barret quietly, and kicked despondently at the rock wall.

"And a lot of explosives," added Yuffie.

"She was never without 'em," he responded petulantly.

Yuffie turned to where she guessed Cloud was and Glared in that direction. "So whaddya we do? Oh Great Leader? Cloud?"

"I'm thinking!" he snapped.

"Cloud..."

"Hey, Tif," he said, sounding like he was forcing a smile.

She walked slowly over the way his voice had come from.

_We're gonna be OK, Cloud? Aren't we? _She nearly said it out loud. _Just _what they needed. _Yeah, Tif, you just sit there and be useless, Cloud'll make it all better, won't he? _She was mocking herself. He was no more a saviour-knight-in-shining-armour than she was. None of them were exactly born heroes... A lot more words came to mind. Things to say. Things to tell him. Confessions, questions, meaningful, important... _Cloud, I... _or _Aeris..._ or - nothing. Nothing she'd ever actually say. She just shook her head and no one saw.

"I don't believe this," said Yuffie, flatly. "I mean, I - I can't believe this is really happening."

"Yeah, well, it is." Barret kicked the wall again, hard, but only acheived extreme pain in his foot. "DAMN!" he yelled.

"Uh... not meaning to scare anyone, but we should probably keep the noise down," said Red quietly. "We don't want anything else to collapse... And... maybe just - try to... save your breath..." He trailed off, miserably.

"We gonna run out of air?" asked Yuffie, voice now completely dulled.

Barret cursed something inaudibly under his breath. "Rather be squashed by a damn rock," he said.

"Where is everyone?" came the voice of Cait Sith from... somewhere. "Anyone gotta Fire with them? Yuffie?"

"No," said Vincent quickly. "Fire will use up the oxygen."

"Oh man..." Yuffie's voice from somewhere, very small and tight.

"It's OK, Yuffie."

She didn't feel exactly able to believe him. "Vincent, are we gonna-"

"Yuffie, where are you?"

"Here..."

Vincent made his way over to her, crawling so he could use his hands to feel his way on the rough floor. "That you?" he asked, putting his arm around someone.

"That's me," she sniffed.

"It's OK," he said again.

"That's an incredibly big lie, Vincent Valentine."

"..."

"Thanks." She sniffed again. "No, OK, I'm OK, I'm good... Let's just concentrate on thinking of some way out."

They thought.

Cid hit the new rock wall a couple times with his spear. Barret, not to be outdone, fired off a couple rounds with his gun-arm. This acheived nothing except for one bullet to hit Cait Sith's moogle on the rebound.

"Hey!" he protested, "Mind where yer pointing that thing!"

A few more bullets clinked to the floor and then there was silence again.

Yuffie broke it helpfully with: "It's just I can so easily imagine all these monsters coming and eating us..."

"Ugh... don't!" cried Tifa

"Hey, wait a minute! We are so stupid!" It was Cait Sith's voice again, sounding much more usually chirpy and chipper.

"Huh?"

"Why did we come in here in the first place? We were chasing that thing! And I don't think anything but the entrance collapsed, and it can't have got out-"

"So there must be more to this cave than this little bit!"

"Unless it's sitting right next to us," said Tifa.

"Yeah, and not attacking?" responded Yuffie, sounding much happier.

"Good point."

"OK!" said Cloud, taking some sort of command again, "So... everyone grab someone else -"

"I got The Claw!" Yuffie yelled, grabbing it.

"-and we'll try going this way..."

They formed a long line, moving forward slowly.

"I wish there was more light... Maybe we _should _light a fire..."

"No... not unless we really need to."

"Man, we need one of them stupid Tonberries..."

"No! Don't even _mention_ them!"

"Ew, but what if there _are _all these monsters crawling around here?"

"Well, we hope there's at least one."

"We _hope_?"

"Well... sorta..."

"Shut the £& up, y'all."

"Shut up yourself!"

* * *


	10. Saving The World Again?

Part 10 : Saving the World (again)?

"_We're In Mortal Danger and everything... it's really boring."_

"Tifa? You OK?"

"Ow... Yeah... I'm fine, just tripping on a rock here..."

Other than that, there hadn't been any obstacle, and there was no way of telling how far they'd walked. It was probably only a few metres, but it felt weird.

"Ow!" It was Yuffie again, half a minute later. "Hey, guys, I've hit a wall!"

"Ow," echoed Nanaki from the other end of the line a second later. "Me too."

"OK," said Cloud, "Then - move in together, towards the middle. That's where the way out is gonna be."

_If there is one_, Tifa couldn't help thinking.

Soon, Vincent, Barret, and Shera had all run into various bits of rock and they were now moving in three lines, hands on each other's shoulders, headed by Cid, Cloud and Tifa. But they were still moving forward, Tifa reflected, which was definitely a plus point. Possibly, this was some sort of a tunnel, and they were now walking along it, but no one seemed to want to say anything in case it ended any second.

"What's that?" said Red suddenly.

"What's what?"

"That... Light!"

"Where?"

"THERE!"

"O-oh, right..."

Red's eyes were more sensitive, but they all soon saw it. A tunnel, lit up in front of them. Light. Green. Light.

"...Lifestream..." breathed Cloud.

The others looked at him.

"Um..." said Barret. "It's a _rock_, Cloud."

Cloud, by the light of the greenly glowing rock, looked sheepish. "Sorry - I, um, just kinda thought - er, never mind."

"Anyway..." said Tifa, not sure whether to laugh.

"Phosperescence?" said Shera, and bent down to have a look at the rock.

"PhosphoWHAT?" asked Barret, "It's a _rock_, ain't it?"

"Phosperescence: the persistent emission of light following exposure to and removal of incident radiation."

Said Yuffie.

Tifa was glad to see by the eerie greenness that hers wasn't the only mouth that had just dropped open.

"...You feeling alright, Yuffie?" asked Cid.

"Hey!" she said indignantly, "What, you all think I'm an airhead or something? You think I don't know stuff? I'm allowed to know stuff about stuff, OK?"

"...OK..."

"Full of surprises," murmured Vincent, smiling.

"It's quite a strong glow..." said Shera, still examining the green.

Cid nodded, scientific interest aroused. "I guess it-"

"Guys," interuppted Barret, "It's a _rock_."

"We've heard," said Shera dryly, standing up.

"Then what are we doing standin' around starin' at it?"

"Nothing, nothing... alright, let's go..."

* * *

"Great," was Cloud's sarcastic comment.

Barret and Cid soon followed up with their own more colourful interpretations of irritation.

The tunnel had split into four, clearly visible by the now omnipresent green glow.

"It's not so bad..." said Tifa. "We can divide into the same groups as before, and use the PHS..."

Cloud shook his head. "We can't have two or three people fighting that thing - and the other groups could be miles away by the time anyone found it..."

"So whaddya we do?" asked Cid, starting to tap his spear impatiently.

"Just pick one and hope?" suggested Shera, hopelessly.

"No good. I just bet we'd miss it completely."

"Yeah, with our luck..."

Yuffie slumped against Vincent and started to make loud snoring noises. "Come on... sometime today, guys?" she yawned.

Cloud rounded on her. "Well what do you suggest?" he snapped.

"Geez, easy!" said Yuffie, trying to hide that his sudden outburst had kind of scared her. "OK... well... I suggest... um... does anyone have any chalk or something? Then we could mark the ways we go and use the PHS so someone could follow when we found it -"

"-that still involves some people alone against the monster-thing."

"I don't think we're gonna avoid that," she fired back.

"Look, look," said Shera, trying to by pacifying. "It's a good plan..."

"With one tiny flaw," said Barret. "We ain't got no chalk, idiot."

"OK, so maybe... we could unravel a jumper or something!" Yuffie continued eagerly.

Everyone stared at her and the knitted tanktop she was wearing.

"You volunteering, Yuff?" Cid asked.

"No! This is _all I'm wearing_, guys!" Then seeing Cid's mouth start to open. "Oh, just _leave_ it, Cid! _No_, I'm not counting underwear, and yes I mean just _on top_. ...And they call _me _immature," she muttered as she sat down and started to snore again.

"...So much for that plan..." concluded Tifa, sighing. "Anyone else got any ideas?"

"Yes!" said Cait, bouncing up and down.

"What? You've got a plan?"

"No!"

"...What?"

"No, I mean, we're gonna do Yuffie's plan -"

"Alright!" yelled Yuffie jumping up again. "My plan rules!"

"...Yes, Yuffie."

"ANYWAY," said Cloud sternly. "Cait, what is it?"

"I've got these!" Revealed within his black paw were four wax crayons.

"OK, where the hell did you get those from?" Cid obviously couldn't help asking.

"The Golden Saucer! Y'know those colouring packs you give to the kids? ...Well, maybe you don't know... but _I _do cos I worked there!"

"Alright, alright!" Tifa was relieved, but was starting to wish like Yuffie that they could actually get on with it. "So we give out a crayon each to the groups, split up and call on the PHS with our colour to follow if any of us see the monster?"

"Right," nodded Cloud. "And - DON'T actually get into a fight with it if you can possibly help it until everyone else arrives."

"Got it. Can we GO now?"

"...Yes... Right, take a crayon each."

"I want yellow!"

"OK, Yuffie can have the yellow one..."

So Yuffie grabbed the yellow (Vincent actually _was_ asleep and so didn't object), Tifa the red one for Cloud and herself, Cid and Shera the blue one - which left Red, Cait and Barret with:

"PINK?" yelled Barret, causing the most spectacular echo effect yet. "No £ing way am I using a £(ing PINK crayon!"

Tifa tried not to giggle. Yuffie didn't try.

"Shut up! Aw, c'mon, someone's gotta swop with me... Tifa? Pwease?"

"Well, Oka-" began Tifa, heart softening to Barret's obvious agony.

"No!" Cloud suddenly held onto the red crayon for dear life. "_I_ don't want a pink crayon!" he hissed.

"That is SO £&ing immature Cloud!" sighed Cid. "Just take the damn crayon already!"

"Hey! WHY is everyone siding against me?"

"We're not ALL -" began Tifa, only to be cut off by -

"Well..." began Yuffie, relishing the moment. "If you want a list, I could -"

"No!" said Cloud hurriedly. He sighed, very heavily. "Fine," he said after a moment of intense inner struggle, "I'll take the pink crayon. And I'm only doing this because I'm a good leader and want what's best for the group in general!"

"Sure."

"Well, what else -"

"SHUT UP!" Barret's gun-arm looked very threatening, the way he was waving it around crazily. "Let's GO already!"

* * *

"Um... Vincent, how long has this tunnel thing been going?" Yuffie asked, as not-nervously as she could manage.

"I'm not sure," Vincent said, continuing to dot yellow marks along the wall.

"That's helpful."

"Sorry."

Yuffie sighed. "You know something? This is actually getting _boring _now. Considering that we're trying to Save The World Again, and we're In Mortal Danger and everything... it's really boring."

"Well.. we're probably nearly there by now."

"Nearly _where_?"

"Um..." said Vincent, thinking fast, and eventually coming with the wonderful: "I don't know. Er... wherever the Thing's got to, I suppose."

"That's... good... I guess..."

They kept walking.

"Are we there yet?"

"...No."

"Are we there yet?"

"...No."

"Are we there yet?"

"...No."

"...I'm bored."

"Yeah, I noticed."

"Are you bored?"

"...No,"

"You're lying," Yuffie announced conclusively. "You're just _bored_ out of your messed-up mind, but you don't wanna say anything cos you'll offend me!"

"Well, actually-"

"And because you know that I am armed and dangerous if I get offended!"

"-that's exactly it," he said hurriedly.

"So you _are_ bored!"

"...Did I say that?"

"Yes!"

"Oh. Er, I'm very confused now."

"Haha!"

Vincent couldn't help chuckling slightly too. "Yuffie, I'm not bored now. I think it's physically _impossible _to be bored in your presence."

"Is that a compliment?" she demanded.

"You could take it as one, I suppose."

"OK, I will!"

"...This is a very odd conversation," Vincent observed solemnly.

"Yeah. Umm... what were we talking about?"

"...I'm not a hundred percent sure..."

"Hmmmm... I know! Let's talk about materia!"

Vincent's laugh echoed a bit freakily off the walls, so they engaged their next ten minutes seeing who could do the evillest laugh.

In the the end, it was Yuffie with her unbeatable "Nyuk nyuk nyuk!"

* * *

...okey day, that's it for now! I would love you to leave a review!  



	11. More Saving The World

chapter 11. In which you can read my attempt at a battle scene... :sigh:

Oh, and Crescent-Wish... here be Cloti! Just a bit :)

-o-

Part 11 : Saving the World, continued

_"Hey, I wouldn't call this a crisis!"_

Tifa and Cloud walked along briskly and without talking much. Their footsteps echoed a bit, but were solid enough. Tifa's left hand trailed along with wall, marking a pink splodge here and there. Her arm was aching a bit from holding it up so long, but she wasn't about to complain to Cloud. _Still, wouldn't it be so ironic if I couldn't actually hit the damn monster because my arm gave out...?_

"Cloud?"

"Yeah...?"

_Um... what now...? _ "Oh.. nothing."

"...OK."

They walked on.

"Tifa..." Cloud began.

"Mmm?"

"...nothing..."

They walked on.

"Cloud-" "Tifa-" they said at the same time.

"Um..."

"Er..."

"Oh... £&( it. Sorry, Tif. I just... kinda... suck at this whole... conversation... thing..."

"'S OK. Me too, seems like."

"I'm a lot better on the phone."

"Yeah, me too."

"And then I get really bad in crisis situations."

"Yeah. But, hey, I wouldn't call this a crisis!"

"Suppose we've had worse..." Cloud demurred.

"_Way_ worse. This'll be a breeze, right?"

"Yeah," Cloud said, all spike-haired-cool again. "No problem at all. We'll just walk through this thing. ...Just - pretend we're both dazzlingly witty wonders as well, and we're sorted."

Tifa felt all warm and glowy inside.

"Sure thing."

She smiled, and impulsively slipped her hand into Cloud's. He squeezed it, and they practically skipped onwards.

And then the PHS rang.

They stopped dead for a second before Cloud's hand flew to his pocket.

"What's happened?" he said immediately.

"Yellow dots, now!" barked the voice of Barret.

"What - but yellow's Yuffie and-"

"Yeah, I know! They just phoned. _They're _the ones who've found it! Come on, get yer asses moving!"

Barret had hung up.

"Yellow?"

Cloud nodded, and they ran back the way they'd come.

-o-

"Why me why me WHY ME?"

"Concentrate, Yuffie!" Vincent yelled back, taking careful aim with the Death Penalty.

"I AM concentrating! The shouting helps, OK?"

The 'Don't get into a fight if you can possibly help it' idea had not worked out. Or, rather it _had_ - they'd tried to help it - they'd just failed, so they were in a fight.

A big, scary fight.

With a very big and definitely scary monster with No Discernable Weakness.

Yuffie caught her Conformer neatly, only to be knocked aside by a huge - well, it was _possibly_ a foreleg. She caught herself before her head got too damaged. Made it to her feet again seeing stars and chocobos.

"ALRIGHT, NOW YOU'VE REALLY DONE IT!" she shrieked. "_ALL CREATION_!"

There was a mushrooming of ultra-violet, and the monster staggered, twisted... and almost fell, one of its limbs going limp and staying that way.

"Yes!" Vincent cheered, twirling his gun around in celebration.

"Thank you, thank you...! Now stop showing off and get fighting!"

"Yes, Sir... " Vincent almost grinned in spite of himself. Then: "OW! Oh my- what WAS that?"

"Uh... AAah!" Yuffie managed, tripping backwards as she too was hit by the blast of green energy shot from the beast.

"It's got Ultima?" Vincent gasped, agog, when he could speak.

"Looks like it... D'you think we made it angry or something?"

"Well, maybe it -" he spun sideways to a avoid a claw "objects to having a leg blown off!"

The attacks were getting even more ferocious - and with the addition of magic, Yuffie started to panic.

"We need the others! Where ARE they? OW! - Should I try the PHS again?"

"How exactly would you do that? Don't worry - they'll be here!" In his head, Vincent was chanting in a very undignified and childish way: _Come on, please come on, hurry up..._

"Only I really REALLY don't think we can keep this up!"

Vincent fired and dodged, reloaded, dodged, fired again... "Don't say that! Just CONCENTRATE, OK?" Dodge, reload, trip, fire, reload...

"I AM!" she screamed, and to prove the point, added: "ULTIMA!"

Another green burst of light... And another extraneous part of the monster flopped limply.

"...Hey, it worked?" said Yuffie, mildly surprised. "Right! I'll"

"YUFFIE!"

Yuffie rolled automatically to the side, winded, unable to speak.

The monster turned and rushed in to strike again for the kill.

And Vincent felt the energy rush through him, and had just time before it overtook him to say: "Oh no you DON'T!"

And Chaos roared.

-o-

"How much... further?" Barret panted, sprinting to keep up with Nanaki.

"I think we're nearly there..."

"It's not... fair... You've got... four legs!"

"Well what about ME?" moaned Cait Sith, as his moogle bounced awkwardly along at high speed.

"Yer not really here!"

"True, true, you do have a point there... As Reeve I could be sitting on a sofa eating caviar for all you know..."

Barret growled in frustration. "Ugh..." he said, "stop being so damn... annoying!"

"Me, annoying?"

"You two, shut up!" interrupted Red suddenly. "_We're here!_ It's right around this corner!"

"How can you tell that?"

There was the very loud sound of more feral screeches and yells.

"Ah. Right then... Monster, you gonna DIE!"

They charged forward.

"We're here!" proclaimed Cait. "Yuffie! Vince- ah, Chaos. Right... Nice to see ya! We're here!"

"You're here you're here you're here!" screamed Yuffie, dancing on the spot, and then having to move very quickly to a different spot for fear of being killed.

It hadn't taken her too long to recover from the last powerful blow, but it had added a huge great bruise to her as-yet-uninjured side, and she felt like she wanted to limp on both legs at once.

"Try Ultima!" she yelled to the new arrivals. "I think it works - yiiikes - but I think my magic's down... I'm t-too tired..."

Nanaki shot a quick concerned glance at the girl before yelling out the spell. Just how long had they been fighting alone?

Huge claws slashed through the air, missing Barret by inches. He retaliated with a barrage of heavy fire. Red flipped forwards to slam into the back of the monster's head, temporarily dazing it. Cait took the opportunity to try Ultima again and Yuffie threw her weapon with all her might. All the while, the cave echoed to the battle cries and fierce attacks of Chaos...

Another part of the Thing relinquished its strength.

And - finally - Cloud and Tifa, and Cid and Shera arrived.

"Hi!" shouted Cloud, unreasonably chipper, "What we miss?"

"Try Ultima..." Yuffie said tiredly to Tifa, ignoring Cloud.

"Yuffie, are you alright? You look really beat up!"

Yuffie shook her head briefly and leapt sideways, a little slower off the mark than usual. "Just concentrate on the fight, OK?"

"Right..."

It was the extra strength they needed. Here, in the enclosed cave where there was nowhere to run, the monster's speed was next to useless. They had it trapped.

Cloud's sword flashed down. Cid drove his spear in straight after it.

And Chaos struck again and again, oblivious to pain, uncaring as he flew straight at the beast's face.

Final Heaven knocked the thing to the ground...

Then Shera fired a final shot with deadly accuracy.

And it was all over. A pyre of dying red embers, and the monster flashed out of existence or vision.

-o-

Wings receded and Yuffie collapsed next to Vincent: just a torn and bloody man in ruined clothes, breathing faintly.

"Hey... We did it! Us! Actually... did it!" She felt way too tired to put much exclamation into the exclamation marks. "Eh, Vin-cent?"

"..."

"Vincent?"

"I. . . ..."

"VINCENT!"

She did the Glare on him as she clumsily sat up, fiddled with her armlet; felt the Cure orb under her fingers. _I'm too tired to do this! _she thought, knowing before she mumbled "cure!" that it wasn't going to work. She turned the Glare to the materia. "Come on!" she yelled. "CURE, damn you!"

Feeble light appeared around Vincent at the same time as Yuffie felt like she was falling further into the ground. "...ugh..." she said vaguely.

Vincent stirred. "Lucrecia-..." he breathed.

"Oh man, not that..." Yuffie flicked hair out of her eyes and focused on the green orb again. "CURE!"

"Lu-"

"It's _Yuffie_. Yuffie, OK! Gawd, don't go and lose your memory as well..." She pinned him down with the waning power of her Glare. "CURE!"

"Gah... Yuffie... thanks... I'm - I think I'll be fine now." He spoke more steadily, somehow the single thought fixed in his mind was that he had to reassure the girl somehow, "-you don't have to-"

"C-CURE!"

"Yuffie?" It was Tifa, walking shakily towards them, Cloud behind her. "Yuffie, what are you doing?"

The girl grinned weirdly. "Curing Vincent, ...'sit look like? 'Scuse, Tif... go away. C-cure!"

"Yuffie stop! You can't keep that up! Look, I'll do it-"

"Go away, Tifa!"

"Yuffie - why?"

"Yuffie, I'm fine now," said Vincent, sitting up with an effort, but managing it. "I'm - fine. Yuffie, _stop_."

"Heh... I'm fine too..." Yuffie said, and promptly fainted.

-o-

A/N: Heey, guys! (This story is actually... growing old and grey now my goodness... 2002? 200_1_? I could check, but I'm lazy.)

Beware of plus de silliness and even a bit o' fluff in the next chapter! Then again, I read it to my _brother_ and he didn't find it too objectionable...

Yes, the next chapter is _the last chapter_. :dramatic music cue: It's nearly over. BIG thanks go to everyone who's ever given me a review (or feedback in any other way... you know who you are!) Thank you thank you thank you... :sniffs: I'm getting a bit sentimental... And ending all my sentences with ellipses...

I think when I started writing or at least started finishing this, I had some duplicit aim of writing both something really silly and light and _also_ making it into some sort of epic that would garner reviews by the hundred. Hmm. Well, I've slightly gone awry there!

Anyway, now... while I _don't_ want to post the last chapter and receive not a single sausage of feedback, I just... hope I make someone smile with this. Whatever small way I can bring happiness to the world, I'm up for it!


	12. Bring On Tomorrow

A/N: My goodness, I'm awful. It's been _years_ since I actually wrote this now. Ahem. Anyway! Last chapter! Cue brief ridiculous fluff... Enjoy!

(Ohh, look, you can do horizontal lines now! Just now little squiggly things. ...Agh, formatting will be the death of me...)

* * *

Part 12 : Bring On Tomorrow

"_I've got something to tell you before I die..."_

"...urghwhat?" Yuffie responded out loud, not entirely sure what the question had been.

"Yuff - you awake?" Tifa's pretty, concerned voice.

Yuffie tried to open her eyes, went "Aaaag, it's too bright," and immediately shut them again. "Hey, Tifa! This makes for a role-reversal... _You_ sitting at _my_ bedside. Still, you must be pretty used to it... what with Cloud and all his comas and stuff..." She could practically sense a Tifa-Glare. She changed tack hastily. "How long've I been out?"

"Just a couple hours."

"Bummer! You get to go all dramatic with three days and I get a couple hours? So unfair!"

"It's still pretty serious! You really overreached with your magic, you know."

Yuffie giggled, eyes still shut, at some private vision. "Hehe, it was worth it though, wasn't it? Swooning in Vincent's arms... always wanted to do that."

There was a polite cough from her other side.

"...and he's right here, isn't he? Oh man..." She opened one eye and squinted around. "Hey, Vinnie," she said over-cheerfully. "How've you been?

"Hello, Yuffie."

"'Hello Yuffie'? That is such a _you _comment... Ohh, who else would go 'Hello Yuffie'? when I'd just said - OOOOH, you're blushing! Vinnie's blushing!"

"Shut up!"

"OK, OK. ...Erm, Tifa? Could you like go out of the room for a minute? Got something private to say to Vince here."

Tifa, rather amused, said "OK..." and left.

Yuffie nodded to herself. "Vincent, I've got something to tell you before I die," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Er - Yuffie, you're not about to die."

"How do you know? I might!"

"No, really-"

"I _might_," she insisted. "You never know, any second now I might just _die _and then you'd never know what I was going to -"

Silence.

"Ha ha, Yuffie."

Silence.

"...I know you're faking it."

Silence.

"Yuffie?"

Silence.

"If you're pretending I knew all along!"

Silence. Vincent stared at the motionless figure.

"Yuffie...?"

Silence.

"Yuffie? OK, now you're scaring me, please wake up..."

Not a twitch. Not so much as a dimple to show she was just bottling up giggles.

"Please-"

Silence.

Then -

"Just kidding!"

Vincent fell back in his chair. "DON'T do that!" he said ferverently.

"Teehee! OK, but I _do _ have something important to tell you..." She closed her eyes again. "Um... OK... Well. OK. Right, um. OK, I'm starting to sound like Tifa..."

Tifa, eavesdropping from outside the door, fumed silently.

"OK, Vinnie, the thing is... I think you're really cute and um... yeah, kinda more than that - you get it?"

"Let's say I don't," said Vincent evilly. "Humour me. Do tell."

Yuffie opened one eye to Glower at him. "I hate you," she said.

"Oh," said Vincent, "that wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear... Well..." He took a deep breath. "Yuffie, I think I - I love you, if that makes any difference."

"Good," she said, surprisingly calmly. "OK, Good." And suddenly she was grinning all over her face and seemed to be strongly resisting the urge to bounce around the room going "EEEEE!" "Vincent, I... me too, I mean, I love you too! So much, I -" She lay back on her pillows and tried to calmly deep-breathe. "You - knew that, right?"

Tifa grinned to herself and walked quietly downstairs.

Hence, she missed Yuffie saying happily:

"OK, cool, that's that sorted out. Now we've just gotta do something about Cloud and Tifa..."

* * *

Cloud and Tifa were by now engaged in the council of war that was happening downstairs. Council of war as in: basically, the rest of the mismatched group was sprawled over Cid's living room, drinking tea, eating cookies and... actually discussing serious matters. 

"The only thing I can think of," Nanaki was saying quietly, "is... Hojo. Something to do with all those Jenova cell samples and specimens and everything he had back at that lab..."

Cait Sith was the first to nod. "I think so too. I was kinda hoping someone else would say it."

Red continued. "These seem like... mutated forms? Whether Hojo's alive and doing it himself or not... we don't know..."

"OK..."

There seemed to Tifa to be an awful lot of awkward silences lately.

"Should someone tell Yuffie all this?" Shera asked nervously. "She's still in bed..."

Tifa shrugged. "Vincent's there with her, right?"

Cloud looked at her and nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure one of them will will have guessed by now."

* * *

In fact, they'd just overheard. 

"So... what, this was one of Hojo's weirdy creatures?" Yuffie asked brightly, "Like a Jenova imitation?"

"Oh... I hope not..." Vincent sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead.

"Look," Yuffie said, more gently, "don't worry too much about it, OK?"

"..."

"O-Kaaaay, Vincent?"

"...OK, Yuffie."

She fixed him with a new, serious, brand of Kisaragi-Look. "We'll deal with it," she said. "If there's more of them we'll get them too, and maybe we'll go back to Midgar or wherever you think, but you can't go now cos I'm sick in bed right now and you're not going without me! And I'm not going without the rest of them, OK? They're all staying here anyway, aren't they?" She looked out of the window into the dusk. "Camping in Cid's living room, I think. We'll drag them along if we need a bit of help to save the world again."

Tifa, outside the door _again_, should perhaps have felt more guilty about the amount of eavesdropping she'd been doing. She didn't feel guilty. This time, she'd even brought Cloud along too.

"Inspiring stuff from Yuffie, no?" she whispered.

"Yeah..." Cloud grinned, but worried. "Hojo?" he couldn't help saying again. "He's - dead, right?"

"I sure thought so..."

"Then -"

"Look, Yuffie's right. We _will_ manage. OK, I know this is _very _difficult for you, but try not to let it get you down." _...and stop him being all morbid and mopey... and try to make him happy..._

Cloud shrugged helplessly. "OK. Thanks, Tifa."

As they walked down through Cid's living room, Tifa smiled to herself. The scattered sleeping bags and travelling kits were oddly reassuring. They'd see it through together this time.

_Thanks, Aeris_, she thought.

The End

* * *

A/N: And here we are. Why could I not get up the motivation to post this sooner? 

Anywayzy. Thanks to anyone for reading; I hope you had fun :)

I remember I had a lot of fun writing it - I liked including loadsa characters, I liked including Shera... and Cid was an unexpected pleasure to write, and Barret too... (and I even mentioned Jessie! Vindicated! XD) Uhh... I have to say that the unashamed Yuffentine fluff worried me a bit on a brief reread (not the uh, _fullest_ chararacterisations I've ever written!) Well, it was meant to be that way - silly.

FFVII rocks. Yes yes. Coming not-so-soon necessarily from Jesta - pregame epic alternative to Before Crisis. Muahaha.


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